Digital phase estimator, digital phase locked loop and optical coherent receiver

Abstract

The present invention provides a digital phase estimator, a digital phase locked loop and an optical coherent receiver. The optical coherent receiver comprises a local oscillator laser, for supplying a local oscillator optical signal; an optical 90 degree frequency mixer, for mixing a received optical signal with the local oscillator optical signal; first and second balancing photoelectric detectors, for converting the optical signals outputted from the optical 90 degree frequency mixer into baseband electrical signals; first and second A / D converters, for respectively converting output signals from the first and the second balancing photoelectric detectors into digital signals; a digital phase locked loop, for compensating a phase difference between a carrier signal of the received optical signal and the local oscillator optical signal, and outputting the compensated signal; and a data recovering unit, for recovering data from the compensated signal.

Description

[0001]This application claims the priority benefit of Chinese Patent Application No. 200710078758.7, filed Feb. 26, 2007 in the Chinese Patent Office, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention relates in general to optical communication systems, and in particular to a digital phase estimator and a digital phase locked loop suitable for application in various modulation techniques, as well as an optical coherent receiver using the digital phase estimator or the digital phase locked loop.BACKGROUND[0003]With the increasing requirements on the capacity and flexibility of optical communication systems, the coherent optical communication technology has become increasingly important. In comparison with incoherent technology such as on-off key (OOK) or self-coherent technology such as differential quadrature phase shift key (DQPSK), the coherent technology has the following advantages: it has 3 dB optical signal t...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017]According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an optical coherent receiver using the digital phase estimator according to the first aspect of the present invention, which receiver comprises a local oscillator laser, for supplying a local oscillator optical signal; an optical 90 degree frequency mixer, for mixing a received optical signal with the local oscillator optical signal; first and second balancing photoelectric detectors, for converting the optical signals outputted from the optical 90 degree frequency mixer into baseband electrical signals; an A / D converter, for converting output signals from the first and the second balancing photoelectric detectors into digital signals; an argument calculator, for obtaining a phase of the digital signals; a phase estimating section, for obtaining a phase difference between a carrier signal of the received optical signal and the local oscillator optical signal; and a decoder, for subtracting the phase difference obtained by the phase estimating section from an output of the argument calculator to recover transmitted data; wherein the phase estimating section comprises the phase estimator according to the first aspect of the present invention, for generating a phase estimation signal in accordance with the digital signals; first and second absolute value calculators, for respectively calculating absolute values of first and second outputs of the A / D converter; an adder, for calculating a sum of the absolute values of the first and the second outputs of the to A / D converter; a look up table, for generating a phase difference in accordance with the phase estimation signal and the sum of the absolute values; and an averager, for removing noise from the phase difference.

[0019]According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided an optical coherent receiver using the digital phase estimator according to the second aspect of the present invention, which receiver comprises a local oscillator laser, for supplying a local oscillator optical signal; an optical 90 degree frequency mixer, for mixing a received optical signal with the local oscillator optical signal; first and second balancing photoelectric detectors, for converting the optical signals outputted from the optical 90 degree frequency mixer into baseband electrical signals; an A / D converter, for converting output signals from the first and the second balancing photoelectric detectors into digital signals; an argument calculator, for obtaining a phase of the digital signals; a phase estimating section, for obtaining a phase difference between a carrier signal of the received optical signal and the local oscillator optical signal; and a decoder, for subtracting the phase difference obtained by the phase estimating section from an output of the argument calculator to recover transmitted data; wherein the phase estimating section comprises the phase estimator according to the second aspect of the present invention, for generating a phase difference in accordance with the digital signals; and an averager, for removing noise from the phase difference.

[0020]The digital phase locked loop according to the present invention compensates the phase difference between the carrier signal and the local oscillator signal by means of the constellation rotator in the digital domain. In comparison with the solutions of the prior art, the present invention has the following notable advantages: the freely oscillating local oscillator laser avoids the difficulties in terms of the optical phase control; in comparison with the analog phase locked loop, the present invention is capable of tolerating greater phase noise; the advantages of the phase locked solution are retained, and it is therefore possible for application under the QAM modulation mode; and, the phase estimator is formed by subtracting and logical computations, thus reducing the difficulty in realization.

Problems solved by technology

The analog phase locked loop is relatively low in speed due to its inherent loop delay.

Moreover, such an analog phase locked loop has the following disadvantages: low control speed due to its long loop delay; high requirements on the phase noise of the carrier and the voltage-controlled oscillator; and large phase error caused by the phase noise, etc.

On the other hand, all of the four times power calculator 205 and the argument calculators 202 and 206 perform nonlinear computations, and it is very complicated to realize these nonlinear computations by means of hardware or digital signal processing technology.

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